


How Many Deaths Can I Die?

by sasha_b



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-02
Updated: 2012-03-02
Packaged: 2017-10-31 23:49:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/349668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shane comes back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Many Deaths Can I Die?

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for _18 Miles Out_

The cut on his hand opens when he takes the gun from Rick – his pointer brushes Rick’s hand, and Shane can’t jerk his eyes from Rick’s face fast enough. Instead, he stares at the other man’s buttons on his shirt, and tucks the Glock back into his pants.

He sighs, breathing in concert with the wind, and it’s warm and humid and he can taste nothing but copper and anger and for shit’s sake –

He reaches out, grabbing Rick’s sleeve covered arm, the maniacal thumping from inside the hatchback of the Hyundai slowing. He wonders for a brief unwanted second if that stupid cocksucker that Rick wants to trust is dying in there, but he doesn’t give a rat’s ass. He cares about _time for you to come back._

Which to him means _Shane, I forgive you_ even though Rick didn’t say those words. Even though all Rick said was how things were gonna be and how he was the alpha male ‘round here and how Shane needed to tow the line and not be _dangerous._

The wind in the trees is oppressive, the noise from the trapped kid in the car annoying and Shane turns and lets go of Rick, walking slowly, body sore and aching, hands rubbing the top of his head, the cut on his palm dragging blood over his already damaged skin. He limps slightly to the edge of the road, where there is a copse of thick brush, and resting hands on his hips, closes his eyes against the burn in them that won’t ever seem to go away.

_If I could take it back, brother, I would._

And Rick didn’t answer him. That hurt worse than anything. Almost worse than Rick leaving him in the bus.

He laughs and Rick’s next to him suddenly. Shane jumps and curses under his breath, eyes opening and stinging, cut on his nose and lip sluggishly bleeding, his dark eyes jerking from the ground to Rick’s face. The other man is white and bruised and cut too and Shane knows he did that, he threw that wrench and missed, he pulled the bike over on Rick, he headbutted and punched and got left behind.

He wonders what changed Rick’s mind. And finds he doesn’t care.

Rick doesn’t speak, save to make a soft grunt when Shane reaches up and slips his shaking hand behind Rick’s head, fingers sticking in the sweat soaked curls. He doesn’t remember the last time Rick’s hair was this long or his beard so scraggily. It’s fucking funny. Like another world funny, like someday soon they’ll wake up and things will be normal and they’ll be in their squad car and Rick will laugh and they will share fries and Shane will have Carl and Lori _and_ Rick in his life.

Sun, dappled and hot on his face.

“If I could take it back I would.”

Rick swallows.

“I know. Brother,” he murmurs, answering at last. He doesn’t mention the wrench, although Shane knows it will never be gone, the reflection of his own bug assed crazy face in the broken glass scorched into his mind forever and ever, Amen, Jesus.

“I would.”

Shane licks his perpetually dry lips and leans toward Rick, hand tearing hard at the other man’s hair. They are shoulder to shoulder, and Shane doesn’t give a shit what else is in this broke world he apparently is perfect for.

But nothing’s perfect. Rick’s proven that. So has Lori.

Thinking her name makes him blaze with a pain so deep he can’t name it, and he shoves her aside and the baby aside and focuses on his friend, his brother, the one man he can readily admit he loves just as much as he’s ever loved any girl in his life. He scrapes his face against Rick’s, their stubble catching and making a weird _surruss_ that brings goose pimples to his arms and neck. Hot sweat and a light breeze and he’s more terrified than he’s ever been in his life.

“I’ll come back.”

Rick nods. Shane closes his eyes, lashes brushing the lobe of Rick’s ear. “That’s what I want. Shane.”

His name is punctuation that shatters the mood and the tension like the glass and the wrench. The smell of cottonwoods reaches Shane’s nostrils and they flare as he inhales deeply.

He tastes blood when he presses his lips to Rick’s temple, resisting the urge to lick it with his tongue, to seal their bond permanently. He settles for the ferric scent on his mouth, and breathes once, twice against Rick’s face.

A kicking comes from the car, and they both drop apart suddenly, Rick striding toward the thing, Shane following after. As he always does, as he always will do. A walker appears at the edge of his periphery and they both get in the car, Rick gunning the engine as they tear out of the parking lot before they have to waste more ammo or have to use their knives again.

The knife Shane cut himself with. His hand hurts, fucking hell.

He watches a lone shambling walker cut through a grassy field as they drive the dumb kid back to the farm. He’ll let Rick sleep on it. He’ll let the other man do as much thinking as he wants, because Shane knows things have changed forever and if he wants this, wants things to work out, he’ll come back and _stay_.

He loves Lori, though, no matter Rick’s decree. And Carl.

And he loves Rick the most. And that hurts the most, because Rick has changed too and Shane isn’t liking it and it’s too fucking weird and now they’re back at the farm.

Shadows blur the skin under Rick’s eyes and they both limp away from the car – Rick says he’ll come back for Randall in a bit, it won’t hurt him none to stay there – and Rick turns for the house, and Shane turns for the camp and the RV and the pump behind the barn and maybe some food with Andrea. Or maybe some alone time where he can rage and scream and shoot and try to do what Rick wants him to do, for Rick’s sake. Not for his own sake, never his own.

“Shane,” Rick calls, and he turns, perpetual frown on his chiseled face lightening a bit when the other man smiles, short and tentative and bloody. “I meant it.” His blue eyes burn through the space between them and Shane can smell him, can feel his body, lean as Shane’s is blocky, against him in the small space by the trees near the Hyundai and the kicking idiot that fucking ruined everything. He breathes, memorizing, wanting to come to where Rick wants him, home, wherever.

Shane nods as Rick heads back to the house, but he’s not sure which thing Rick meant.  
Doesn’t matter. He wants it, all of it, so that’s enough.

He’ll come back and he’ll stay for Rick, because he’s Rick even though there was the bike and the wrench and Shane being trapped in the bus and alone, hand splayed on the glass, dirty, broken, aching and eyes on the retreating back he knows so well.

Birds chatter and he finds a bench and sits, viscous fluid drying on his face as he spreads his fingers, the cut cracking open, blood flowing, red and thin.


End file.
